David Akin, Parliamentary Bureau Chief

But when he awoke here in the Indian capital, polls were just closing on America’s east coast and, a few hours later, as Harper was wrapping a speech to a business crowd here, Republican challenger Mitt Romney conceded the election to U.S. President Barack Obama.

“On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to congratulate President Barack Obama on his victory in tonight’s election and on being re-elected by the American people for a second term,” Harper said in a statement issued to reporters here minutes before Harper’s plane took off for Chandigarh, in the northwestern state of Punjab, India.

Harper and his wife Laureen watched a few minutes of the election returns in their hotel room in New Delhi.

But then, at about 11 p.m. Washington, D.C. time or 9:30 a.m. New Delhi time, Harper was on state at a World Economic Forum event here talking about furthering Canada-India relations. By the time Harper had left the stage, many television networks in the U.S. had called the election for Obama.

“I look forward to working with the Obama Administration over the next four years to continue finding ways to increase trade and investment flows between our countries. This includes putting in place the transportation and security infrastructure necessary to take bilateral commercial relations to new heights and reducing red tape so companies on both sides of the border can create more jobs,” Harper said. ““I also look forward to continuing to work with President Obama on pressing global economic issues as well as on security challenges, such as those in Iran and Syria.”

One of the most important issues from a Canadian point-of-view was a referendum in Michigan on the issue of building a new Detroit-Windsor bridge, the busiest conduit along the border for two-way trade. Michigan voters rejected attempts to kill that project.

Harper had, last month, issued his own warning about the biggest challenge facing whoever was to prevail Tuesday.

“The United States must get a grip on its fiscal situation,” Harper said in Vancouver on Sept. 6 during a conference organized by Bloomberg. “The United States' fiscal situation is very bad, the trajectory is very bad and regardless of what happens [in the election], in the next few years that trajectory also has to be resolved. And so, I will hope that after the elections are concluded that there will be some focus on that particular issue in the United States.”

Harper believes that unless the U.S. government gets its fiscal house in order, the U.S. economy is likely to remained mired in a slump and, since the U.S. is Canada’s biggest customer, that would be bad news for Canada.